Crisis at Christmas

Crisis doesn't call their Centres 'shelters' anymore, explained a senior volunteer at 3am one night this Christmas, over a paper plate of bloody good curry. It's partly because there is a stigma attached to the word and partly because their Centres don't just provide a roof over people's heads. Instead, London's homeless (known at Crisis as guests) can access services such as doctors, lawyers and housing advice, eat three well-cooked meals a day, watch films, play bingo or board games, sing karaoke, and interact with each other and around 8,000 volunteers across 15 centres. I cannot count the number of times I was told that many of the guests consider the crowd from Crisis to be their family.

My Crisis experience, however, did revolve largely around providing a safe place for guests to get their head down, as I was signed up for night shifts. Starting at 10.15pm and running till 8.30am, the night shift is the longest and quite different from the two day shifts. As I arrived each night, the entertainment was finishing up, and people were beginning to go to bed. By around midnight, most guests were in bed and the majority of my time was spent sitting, watching over the centre. A few guests stayed up each night, shuffling around or sitting to talk. We were warned in orientation that it might seem like the reason for the job we'd been given was unclear, as we could spend an entire hour watching nothing happen. But, of course, every section of the centre needs to be staffed, sometimes just to ensure that nothing untoward is happening in empty corners.

One of the posts was standing outside, checking off people coming and going. There was a lot of chat about whether it was a good job (the fresh air keeps you awake), or a bad one (it's fucking fucking cold in London in December and we are soft British folk who dislike any sort of weather.) I remain undecided, but there is certainly a funny feeling you get in your tummy when you are standing around with two other volunteers, bundled up in a bright yellow jacket of authority and complaining about your 45 minutes of chilly toes, when suddenly you all realise that not 5 feet away is a building full of people who... well, you get my point.

One night I was posted out there when a woman from a housing organisation (charity or council, I'm not sure) was just leaving and a guest collared her for some last minute advice. He had been given a flat in the past and had lost it, he said, due to the incompetence of the council, or charity, or whatever organisation it was. He was laddish, I later found out he was about 45 but he could have passed for a scrappy 25, and he gave a convincing story of his victimisation in the situation. His ex-girlfriend had screwed him over. He hadn't had any support. He lost his job and got kicked out. Housing lady said she'd do her best to help him if he could let her know a place he'd be on a regular basis, so she could visit. He scuffed his trainers on the pavement, sniffed and shrugged, and said he couldn't commit to anything like that. After some back and forth, she told him to see her tomorrow and left.

As soon as she was out of earshot he turned to us and with a cheeky grin he muttered, "I wonder if they'll want the three grand I owe them, hah" as if it was a joke we were all in on. None of us laughed. Another volunteer, who works in the Navy and was getting on with this guy well, told him he needed to play the game and cooperate with the woman. More trainer scuffing, sniffing, shrugging. He would, he said, he knew. It must be hard for the people who work with this all the time to know who to help, when they can't help everyone. This guy seemed like a nice guy. He had his forklift truck driver's license. He was well spoken. And he spent most of his 20s travelling up and down the country and sleeping in service stations. I'm not drawing a conclusion or making a judgement here because I'm not sure I have one to draw or make. Build your own if you want, I guess.

Another of the jobs at the centre was sitting in the sleeping rooms. Guests slept on simple cots made of wooden frames with canvas suspended in the centre and they each have a thick blanket which they are given to keep on the last day. The rooms held about 15 to 30 guests each and 2 to 4 volunteers would staff each room at any one time. The rooms were decorated for Christmas, the walls covered in bright drawings of holly leaves and snowflakes and signs proclaimed "Merry Christmas!" in multicolours and several different languages.

In the blue half-light of the main sleeping room, you could make out the shape of a large model reindeer and a fir tree. In another room were piles of board games and books, and a row of computers. My enduring memory from Crisis is of sitting in these rooms, watching anonymous mounds in identical beds snoring, shifting heavily under welcome blankets and getting some sleep.

One night, I was stationed in the far corner of the main sleeping room, away from the door, surrounded by cots. One boy slept inches from my knees. I say boy, he was probably around 30. But that night, with blankets clutched around his frame, his face upturned towards the window and his skin pale in the moonlight, he looked like a sick child. And so tiny. I kept thinking about stroking his forehead in the way my mum used to do to me, smoothing my hair to one side, where it would never stay. I couldn't do that, but I could help to give him a safe place to sleep that night, and 6 other nights this Christmas. 7 nights total, out of 365.

So every time someone tells me they think it's great I did Crisis this year, I feel only uncomfortable, because I know it's not enough and I don't know what would be or if I'd be capable of it. But, while a lot of what we did on the night shift was just sitting still and watching, I know that meant 100 people a night could sleep, safe in the knowledge that they could leave a plastic bag containing everything they owned under their cot and someone was watching to make sure it'd still be there in the morning. And, while the name for the centres may have changed, I know that providing safe shelter for the night is just as important to the guests as all the things that go on during the day at Crisis.

http://www.crisis.org.uk/

Gaza Protest in London January 10th

The Stop The War coalition organised a protest in London today. It started in Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park at 12.30. I got down there around 3pm and by that time everyone had marched to the Israeli Embassy in Kensington. I found them by following the sound of loud speakers and chants. I had to climb over a fence of Hyde Park with the help of a group of well-to-do middle aged people who were also climbing over. I could hear the noise all the way from the other side of Hyde Park. As I got there, the official speeches were just wrapping up. There were thousands of people in the street still though so I stuck around to take pictures of the crowd and then it all kind of kicked off.

Crowd standing outside a posh London hotel



Mostly people were just chanting "Free, free Palestine" and waving their signs.



Clearly this guy was no newbie to "causes"







This is some kind of hippy-mobile.







That's an Israeli flag in the air



A group of guys started setting alight Israeli flags and stamping on them...











At this point, I was in a big group, flanked against a row of police with shields and helmets. About 50 yards down the road was another row of police facing the other way, with a group of protesters on the other side. They were trying to get people from the other side through to our side and weren't letting people back the other way. I chatted to a guy with press pass who said his friend was on the other side and that a Starbucks had been smashed in. He flashed his pass to a cop to try and get through and I was considering holding up my camera (big professional SLR with a long lens sometimes does the same job as a press pass) and trying to pretend I was with him... but the cop denied him anyway.

Things seemed pretty peaceful on our side as far as I could see, people were chanting, the flag burning was the worst I saw up to this point. All of a sudden, a row of police mounted on horses trooped in behind the line of standing police. This drew strong boos from the crowd, and people started saying the police were planning to charge at us to move us back. People started yelling "shame on you" at the police and scattering backwards. I found it weird that the police had called in extra reinforcements as it really didn't seem necessary and it definitely made people angry that the police were beefing up. As the crowd dissipated I saw this...





I don't know what had happened to him and I've since read in the news that a policeman was knocked unconscious so I guess this was the guy. Every now and then the police would make a little surge and people would start running backwards and shrieking. I ran backwards a bit at this point, as the prospect of getting trampled down by a row of mounted police wasn't appealing. As we ran, I saw a guy who had tripped over a barrier and was lying on the floor, a couple of police grabbed him and there was a scramble in which they hit him as he was trying to get up. I don't have any photos of it though as too many people were in the way, and I was still running away, so take it as you will.

Some people were dragging the metal barriers into a row to form a blockade to stop the police advancing further.







We ended up with this kind of set up, police were on one side...



And protesters were on another, behind a barrier they'd set up themselves.




This was when people started throwing various stuff at the police, mainly the wooden poles that had been used to hold up signs. They were very light and the police were looking unconcerned and just knocking them away with their shields.

People in the crowd were still chanting "Free, free Palestine"


And the drumming started again...


A couple of guys went in front of the barriers and waved their signs and chanted



Then about five police vans appeared from behind the crowd, driving through towards the front. A few protesters banged on the vans, and threw sticks and even barriers. I decided to blur this guy's face.


These guys ripped these metal bars from some basement steps of a house.

I guess they intended to throw them but they must have thought better of it because I saw them again ages later still holding them.

Someone had the idea of putting the barriers underneath the wheels of the vans, and that led to a few minutes of the vans driving back and forth, sometimes at quite some speed considering how many people were around. The police were obviously trying to get protesters to move back. They'd surge forward every few minutes, and people would run, myself included. I was very conscious that if the police wanted to, they could just trample us. There were lots of barriers around still and I was worried that I, or other people, could get trapped. It felt like a very real possibility that anyone caught in the wrong place at the wrong time could end up on the wrong end of a police baton. After each little surge, the crowd would regroup and begin chanting again until, after another few minutes, the police would suddenly start running towards us again, seemingly unprovoked.

Around this time I wandered a bit further back to send a text to my friend and when I got back, only a few minutes later, things seemed a little calmer. A few people decided to sit on the floor in a gesture of peaceful protest.














The atmosphere in the crowd was so calm at this point, seriously. No one was throwing things as far as I could see. People were chanting "free free palestine" and that was all.

These guys were even taking comedy "us running at the police" photos.


It was calm.

Then suddenly the police yelled "FORWARD" and marched at us at speed. People had to scramble to get off the floor and we moved back about 30 yards. These photos are super blurry because I was walking backwards while taking them.





Everyone just seemed confused about why we were being forced back. This happened a few more times, the crowd would settle in a new spot, calm. The worst people were doing was yelling "You can move us back but you can't get rid of us" and yet the police would still yell "FORWARD" and surge at us. I guess they had just had enough and wanted the protest over so they could go home.

More police arriving...


The police had succeeding in separating the crowd by now, and I decided to make my way home. I chatted to this girl, who was using a loud speaker to call to the police lining the streets back towards the tube station... "Happy New Year, nice to see you all, it's been a pleasure. Hope you had a great Christmas, and a great day today", all laced with heavy sarcasm.